Noise as Reflection

[hello-patricks]

Fear of listening to the truth

For no particular reason, I am remembering this woman I met 20 years ago.

We liked mostly the same things, we had the same values, and we enjoyed most of our time together.

She was honest about who she was, and how she saw the world, and that was a very cozy feeling, finding that person that also enjoys sitting with to watch a Wong Kar-Wai film and then talk about the feelings that evoked. She enjoyed my weirdness, my very peculiar and idiosyncratic way of looking at the world and finding patterns.

But it was scary, because she was honest, her career was subject to regulation, and therefore the timelines were not subject to change on a whim, and any free time was precious.

So I broke it up.

I broke it up and ended marrying a person that hated my taste in media, hated leaving her small right wing town, enjoyed Sundays at church, but said all the right things that I wanted to hear. We kinda shared some values, but where the most glaring difference was, it was on their approach to the Other.

The one from long ago was respectful of differences, of disabilities, and differences. The one I married was - and is - ableist, disrespectful of those that are not like her, and not surprisingly, unwilling to learn new things that come from those that are not considered as authorities.

And I married her, because she said the things I wanted to hear.

[hello-patricks]

Knowing people

People in general were always a random thing, an unknowable void, the reason to read all the books and try to get accepted by someone, the reason I kept beating myself up for not dating the most popular girl in university, and thoroughly complain about it, while unbeknownst to me other 15 women were openly flirting and inviting me to their house at night.

I really thought they wanted to study.

People and their motivations have been a black box, and that’s why I an hypervigilant. And why read all the books about behavior, and all the courses, and listen to the advi9ce of all charlatans.

I want to know why people act the way they do! I can’t understand, a lot of the time, so I observe.

I don’t so much know people as construct a mental database of their emotions, words, actions, and say what I think they need to hear, sometimes to my detriment. But I keep listening.

People, the general absurd mob, is easier to understand; the girl across the cafe furiously flirting with her gay male friend is obvious to me, not so much to themselves. The college guy that is bored with his friend at the cafe is glaringly obvious; the boss sleeping with his subordinate, while shocking, is not really a surprise.

But when people talk to me? I don’t know what to say, or how to feel.

I guess I am still curious.

[hello-patricks]

Exec dysfucntion

My ex birthday came and went, and I was elated to notice it after the fact, that I am very much not daunted by her absence, and that all things considered, it was better this way.

Until I also noted that I forgot simply because I forgot; i forgot to pay the rent, to take my kid to the doctor, to search for a new job. Things have already overwhelmed me elsewhere, so all things non essential were gone.

BRB got to go pay the rent.

[hello-patricks]

Communication

The feeling when that person that was loved deeply is now answering in corporate speak

[hello-patricks]

Skill bbased therapy

I tthink that's what needed right now, not just some "oh you have unresolved trauma" but help getting out of the rut and doing the things I want to do.

Yes, the autistic burnout, the rsd, the paralyzing fear (or whatever you call it), that's all a cause of the inaction, but now, right now, I need to act, to move, to do the ten extremely important tasks to save my loved ones lives, and I can only stare at the wall, drowning in a circle of thoughts and worries.

When I turn tasks into routines they are easy, automatic, needing no thought or agenda, and things get done.

But these ten tasks, projects really, are fucking awful difficult scary, and require doing the same thing day after day after day and that just doesn't happen with me, notwithstanding what I just wrote before.

I got to protect two children. That's all that matters.

[hello-patricks]

Armoring

I had been greyrock with the ex and I for so long that I had forgotten about it.

I hhave known her sociopathic tendencies for a while now, but I didn't realize it was a survival strategy so deeply ingrained that it happened automatically next to her.

My body, though, got tense, and the shoulders started hurting. Which is good: I feel stuff!

#diary of a late diagnosed autistic

[hello-patricks]

Mirror

A few days ago I saw my reflection in a mirror, and it was not the sharp defined image that I remembered from earlier years.

The photo showed a diffuse cloud where a human was, an outline of my clothes and a shadow where my face would be, eyes dim, three day beard showing, right side of the face melting already, as if by some accident that no one remembers; clothes are either to tight and old, or too big and old, being both gigantic and constricting, with dull colors that blend in a fall scenery, rather smushed into the background and with a distinct limp in my left leg.

The face I remember also had these clothes, both grey asphalt and faded green, like a topiary at a street crossing, yet they fit better, and the face was sharp defined clear inquisitive.

The photos and images see, to move, to take an image of a person almost not here, not moving or going, but disappearing.

That’s how I feel?

[hello-patricks]

Not Closure, Confirmation

My burnout and depression were kicking me, thinking about the ended marriage and wondering about what was that I did or not, and how did I not see the signs and all that rumination. Autistic reaction to trauma is brutal, and the pain has been gnawing at me every day.

However, this weekend my kid had emergency surgery, and his mother didn’t show up for 24 hours, because she was with her boyfriend partying.

Not surprised, but all my rumination has receded now that I have an objective measure of the narcissistic tendencies of that person. Also, it explains the slow process that has been getting to find myself again after years of that.

Why posting here? Be careful of the people you surround yourself with. Her father told me she was bad, I found some online writing of her saying that she could pose as a good girl and deceive people, but I did not want to believe that.

Well, now I do: people will tell on themselves; you just have to accept that they are telling you who they are, as Maya Angelou used to say.

[hello-patricks]

There’s something around here

There’s something here that doesn’t make sense. However, I have been so conditioned to accept abuse and drama that I can’t really pick it up.

On nights where I just turn off all the lights and sit all by myself in a corner of this tiny apartment, not doing anything, just living without a distraction or a computer in my face, somehow the sense comes to me that the clear abuse and toxicity of my current job is a signal to run far away, that the long lost love that my ex used to profess was also a cover for her toxic behavior that I didn’t remark about, that the very much painful internalized hate that I repeat to myself every day is something that I have learned and thus can change, and then.

It disappears. I get on my daily routine from 5am to 10om, running to get things done, bill paid, boss not angry, ex-wife not combative, and at night, just before bed, that little dark corner let’s me live one second more, shivering in this cold place, covered with a blanket, wondering about the world and trying to remember how to breathe again.

[hello-patricks]

Relaxing after the toxic

The ex-wife is a toxic person, so I avoid her.

Recently we had to talk, but seeing her and listening to her plans made me tense, armouring, preparing for the next dangerous or expensive idea, the challenge or the damaging proposal.

But suddenly I remembered that it is not my game anymore, and that whatever she has planned does not involve me; the shoulders relaxed, the pain ceased, the breathing was easier.

And the fact that her disdain for neurodiverse people, very much internalized ableism, hurts as well (it hurts?) makes it so much more interesting.

But for now, just breathe and allow the feeling to pass.

[hello-patricks]

the body remembers

"oh no where is my wedding ring?"

It has been 5 years.

[hello-patricks]

therapie

instead of spending on amazon to get the serotonin, i need to get a tehrapist to deal with the trauma.

I know I have autism, and it is not a problem: it is part of who I am and how I interact with the world.

The problem are not the people that over the many decades have told me that I am weird, and that they love me for it.

The problem are all these ableist assholes that value only for whatever profit I mean for them, and have hurt me just for their very termporary gain.

[hello-patricks]

At aa parents meeting

And I found myself seated at the table with a bunch of mothers, the ones I usually sit with, that are finally acknowledging that all of them have kids in the autistic spectrum, from the gifted one that manages with small meltdowns to the one that is struggling with the school system and lack of support.

And it clicked why is it that I sit with them: they see my behavior and they are probably used to autistic excursions in stories and special interests, and are gentle when suggesting ideas on dealing with my lack social awareness.

This is not the first time. All my life I have been surrounded by the people who have loved relatives in the spectrum, and usually these friends provide a safer space where I can say my most unhinged things, and they are patient and understanding.

It's just that I never thought about their relationships as drivers of acceptance, or how we end up gravitating to the same table.

[hello-patricks]

Neurodiv work

At work, I have found out what we all had in common.

At our exploitative workplace, with abusive bosses and horrible practices, and all of us, unable to leave this horrible place. None of us able to defend ourselves with words. All of us aware of the pain.

All of us are neurodivergent, very clearly. And all of us had an emotionally abusive military father.

The trauma level in that room is thick as the air we breathe (no ventilation either).

[hello-patricks]

The hour is late

My fantasy: "come here, I an waiting for you."

Reality: "It's 4 minutes past nine, so whatever it is it will have to wait until tomorrow."

[hello-patricks]

Flirting

I was invited to a party this weekend, and of course I was not surprised at finding out that the hosts were neurodivergent, but a few thigs about the party enraged me.

There was one guest that seemed aloof, yet oddly trying to make conversation with me, yet not able to. Like her presence was comfortable even though she did not say much.

She was very secure about her body, clearly, because she lazily displayed it while near me. Good for her, everybody wears what they want.  

She sat close to me a lot of the time, and sometimes would even look at me.

The thing that enrages me, I am realizing, is just the stage of grief I am in right now. You see, dear reader, I liked her, and she didn’t seem to dislike me, and on leaving gave me a hug and a chaste cheek kiss, but that was it.

I liked her, and would have liked to ask her number or anything, but the words coming out of my mouth were all wrong, the meaning all wrong, and I could not definitely read what she was meaning, at all.

And the rage is that I finally accept that this has been happening my entire life, when I can’t read people meanings or intentions and I am left out, opportunities lost, without any recourse.

In this case, it is the realization that there was something happening, positive or negative I have no idea, but there was something going on.

Imagine a star explosion and you can only realize it happened because the light reaches you long after it happened – there was something, but can’t tell what it was, but I know I wanted to be part of that.

And the grief of this tiny little event brought back the memories of all other events, situation where the communication was not there, whoever was on the other side didn’t make it clear to me, and choose to make it obscure – and I am suffering from it, now, after so many years.

It is Fall, it is beginnings, it is a new thing coming down the line. But for now I am accepting my grief.

[hello-patricks]

Spoons

My spoons are mostly in executive function: I can do things rapidly, in series, provided I know who to do them and I have done them before, multiple times.

New things take forever.

So, yesterday, I got up at 5am, took kid to school, exercised, packaged and shipped some things that I have kept postponing for three weeks for a return, deposited money in the bank and all that before I had to go to  work.

Predictably, after work I was just sitting here. I tried to read, but only made it through a small story. Could not watch anything, not that I care anymore.

I sat three hours, doing nothing, because my mind would not engage: I felt slipping, not browsing, not reading, not thinking ideas, just snippets flashing here and there.

Work is horribly numbing and extremely boring: also, it is just a bunch of tasks one after the other, no ideas, no thinking, highly scripted interactions, so it goes fast. Exhausting and stressing, but no thinking needed.

I was building a computer, and it has been years since IO played with linux and making my own, and oh please this thing took forever., The agonizing decision over what kind of this and what kind of that: finally I decided to just order random things and just make it as best as I can, allowing myself the possibility of error and having to wait for another week because I ordered the wrong memory, the wrong card, the wrong cables.

But exec function needed to even open the boxes: the case sat in a box, untouched, in a corner of a room, for a whole month before I was even able to open the box and look at the instructions: and this is a thing I grew up with, an activity I enjoy and can lose myself into, except that this time there was a new element, besides, you know, the money.

The computer is almost done. I just have to install the card and all the forking drivers in linux, and then trying to get it running again. So I guess another week, because I just got the card a week ago.

Oh fuck taxes!